On 15 May 2026 Poland’s lower house of parliament overwhelmingly adopted a government bill that will allow border authorities, police and the Office for Foreigners to collect and share a broader set of biometric identifiers from irregular migrants, asylum-seekers and other third-country nationals aged six and above. The measure creates a single national ‘access point’ to the EU’s upgraded Eurodac 2.0 database, to be run by the police Central Forensic Laboratory, replacing a patchwork of separate databases that critics said left dangerous blind spots in Europe-wide searches for repeat border-crossers and people smugglers. Eurodac 2.0—due to become compulsory for all member states on 12 June 2026—stores facial images alongside the long-standing fingerprint records, greatly increasing the accuracy of matches. Warsaw’s bill spells out which Polish agencies may enter or retrieve data, the retention periods, and how requests from fellow EU states will be authenticated, tightening data-protection oversight after the country’s ombudsman warned of gaps in existing practice. For mobility managers the reform is largely behind-the-scenes, but it will affect the experience of non-EU assignees arriving at Polish airports, land and seaports: all are likely to face a brief biometric capture if they lack a valid visa or residence card. Companies that routinely bring in short-term contractors on visa-free stays should review compliance procedures, because once a traveller’s data are in Eurodac, overstays or multiple short trips across the bloc will be far easier for authorities to flag. The Ministry of the Interior insists that the change will not slow down legitimate business travel and claims the new central gateway can process a match in under two seconds. Nevertheless, travel-risk advisers recommend allowing extra time on arrival during the system’s bedding-in phase and ensuring that staff carry proof of accommodation and onward tickets, as officers will have more detailed personal data at their fingertips to cross-check narrative inconsistencies.
Source: Polskie Radio (English Service)
